Sports Apparel Purveyor Fanatics Swipes One Kings Lane Chief

Fanatics, which sells licensed sports apparel online, has hired the leader of buzzy online e-commerce outfit One Kings Lane to be its CEO.

One Kings Lane

Doug Mack

The hiring, effective April 21, gives Fanatics an entrenched Bay Area chief in Doug Mack and coincides with a recent satellite office opening in San Francisco. Mack has been CEO of One Kings Lane, a San Francisco-based site for home goods, since May 2010 helping it grow to a nearly $1 billion valuation.

“I think I can have a really good impact in terms of marketing and strategy and customer experience,” said Mack, who recently landed One Kings Lane a nearly $1 billion valuation. “It’s not often in life you get to combine two passions in your job,” said Mack, referring to his passion for sports and leading Internet companies.

Mack, 45 years old, is filling the CEO role of Alan Trager who co-founded Fanatics and has been its chief since 1999. Trager, 60 years old, is retiring.

Mack said he’d work from a new satellite office in San Francisco opened by Fanatics, which will keep its headquarters in Jacksonville, Fla.

Fanatics is a unit of holding company Kynetic LLC, which landed a $3.1 billion valuation after raising $170 million from a group including Singapore state-owned investment company Temasek and Alibaba Group.

The company sells branded apparel like T-shirts and boxer shorts for the largest US sports leagues, and is the technological backbone behind their retail websites.

Fanatics has grown to about 1,800 employees from around 1,300 a year ago and has about $1 billion in revenue.

The company, like recently public Zulily, has been able to fend off Amazon.com by focusing on a specific niche. Though Amazon has been expanding its sports apparel offerings in recent years, Fanatics’ agreements with the US leagues gives it access to exclusive products.

Kynetic CEO Michael Rubin said he was attracted by Mack’s experience growing One Kings Lane from a much smaller company into a respected e-commerce site.

Rubin, who also oversees e-commerce sites RueLaLa and ShopRunner, said he has no immediate plans to seek an IPO for Fanatics and is not seeking to raise additional capital. The company is profitable, though a spokesman declined to provide specifics.

Dinesh Lathi, 43 years old, is stepping in as One Kings Lane’s interim CEO after holding the chief finance and operating jobs there. He said in an interview Wednesday he would help the company seek a permanent CEO replacement.

Lathi said Mack had already accepted the Fanatics position when he told the company and the board saw no opportunity to retain him.

A spokeswoman for One Kings Lane said its chief marketing officer, human resources chief and vice president of brand development are leaving the company. She said the departures are not related to Mack’s move.

Correction: A previous version of this article misspelled Dinesh Lathi’s last name as Lath.